– Young model and poet teaches self-love, positivity

By Telesha Ramnarine

A SPOKEN word artist, model, poet, and advocate for social issues, are some of the titles of the young and beautiful Daniela Araujo; but those are just a few of the things she wants to do with her life.

“I want to be able to leave my footprints in the sand when I leave here and to just be the best version of myself”.
A victim of mental health issues in the past, Daniela, 19, is especially fond of using her time to promote these and other social issues that are affecting society.
She believes that her trials and tribulations have given her the ability to overcome any of the challenges that she may encounter.
“I’ve dominated challenges in the past and these have molded me into the woman that I am today.”
Born and raised at Grove, on the East Bank of Demerara, Daniela originally wanted to become a doctor because of her love for science, but a passion for learning new things pulled her in a different direction.

Today she couldn’t be happier with her decisions in life. She works as a personal assistant to a makeup artist, whom she said is one of the best in the country. She also uses her time to hone her skills in the arts.

Outside of physical work, Daniela is big on introspection. “I want to be able to continue to spread love, kindness and light wherever I go; it’s one of my personal goals. I believe in being the light and the world is in a very, very dark place so I tend to shine my light wherever I go, educate people, uplift people, inspire people with the things I do.”
To this end, she said her favourite quote, by which she lives is “As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others the permission to do the same”.
One of the factors that significantly hinders Daniela from ‘shining her light’ though is the fact that persons in the local entertainment industry are not adequately compensated for their time and talents.

“People aren’t willing to pay us what we truly deserve and I don’t think they understand the amount of work it takes for us to do this stuff. These are things people tend to take for granted in our country. I don’t think Guyanese realise that we have so much talent and that it’s high time for us to be paid. In Guyana, we have to constantly work a 9 to 5 job and still find the time to get our creative side on.”

To this end, Daniela has been working on a book that she hopes to publish in the not too distant future, and one of her main goals is to establish a string of businesses across the country, with the help of her mom.

Her advice to other young people is “Work on you, for yourself, to be the best version of yourself. The only person you should try to be better than is the person in the mirror; work hard, be educated and be independent, and always remember to be kind and shine your light everywhere because they might forget your name but they will never forget the impact you’ve made.”